The Good, Bad and Undecided – NRL Round 9

Melbourne are the benchmark but who is ready to rise up and challenge them for the title?

Oddschecker

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Tue, 2 May, 1:23 AM

Melbourne are the benchmark but who is ready to rise up and challenge them for the title?

The Storm rolled into Wollongong and blew the Dragons off the mark early, eventually winning 34-22 in a game that saw wingers dominate with Josh Addo-Carr and Suliasi Vunivalu bagging doubles while Jason Nightingale secured a hat-trick in a beaten outfit.

Elsewhere, the Warriors were rewarded for their improved efforts in recent weeks to show they could be a smokey come finals time while the Titans are also looking as though they could start making a run.

At the bottom end of the table and it seems as though the Knights could be in for yet another long season while Penrith and Canberra continue to be shadows of their former selves.

THE GOOD

MELBOURNE – it was hard not to be impressed with what we saw on Sunday.

Racing out to a 22-4 lead at half time, Craig Bellamy did the obvious and exploited the weaknesses of the Dragons on the fringes and with the firepower he has out wide, his team executed to perfection.

The $4.25 @ Sportsbet for them to win the Grand Final looks pretty good at this stage of the season. Remember, they are already two wins clear of second place on the ladder!

THE BAD

NEWCASTLE – just back them for the wooden spoon.

They were simply terrible against the Titans after getting handled by 30 points. Nathan Brown’s men are on the bottom of the table and we can’t see them generating enough wins to avoid the spoon for the third year running.

The $1.60 @ Sportsbet To Finish Bottom looks good – don’t have another bet, just take the money as it’s a lock. You’ll have to wait until the end of the season to collect but hey, it’s 60 percent return on your investment!

THE UNDECIDED

CANTERBURY – now 5-4 the dogs scored an upset win over Canberra on the weekend in what normally would’ve signaled a team’s premiership credentials.

We aren’t convinced because it seemed as though they bored the Raiders to death and eventually caught them by surprise. Canberra had several chances to put more points on them but at the end of the day they could only generate two tries.

Canterbury will win most of their games in this fashion but is it the blueprint to premiership success? We don’t think so.

That might be good enough against teams that are struggling for form and points, however, against quality opposition who are in form is a totally different story as we have already seen.

You can get as much as $23 about them to win the premiership but we aren’t rushing in to the price just yet.